The Opelousas courier., 1887-05-28
COFFEE AND TEA.
a Glance at the Wholesale
Trade in New York.
How Coffee, Tea and Molasses are Treated
by Millionaire Dealers.


at all. Down by the ferry, around Front
and Water streets, there is no stock and
bond favor whatever. Things down
there smack of China, of Java, of Brazil
and of Cuba, but of nothing nearer
home. Down there the big men in tea,
coffee, sugar and molasses rule the
roast. Il there is any boarding house
keeper who wants to buy these table
Injuries by the ton or the cargo, just
drop around, but otherwise stick to the
corner grocery. There is where the
solid men of New York and Brooklyn
nimbly hunt the spry ~sixpence. At
home these heavy citizens are never
asked to do anything, but down there
on the market they skip around like
Wallets to Mammon. With a painful of
green coffee beans in one hand and a lit
tie paper OF oolong in the other, they
jump to serve their masters whims.
It seems funny to see the millionaire
pumping a long fat stick up and down
through the bunghole of a hogshead of
molasses on the street, running his dia.
m~ond-studded fingers along it, and
scooping the saccharine treacle into his
gold-plugged mouth. He is an expert,
but he cannot lick his fingers any better
than the rude, untutored urchin who
steals a lesson at it when the expert
turns his back.
Over on the Office steps stands a man
whose trotters will by and by be spurn-
ing the dust of Central avenue from their
hoofs. Look at him sitting coffee. How
complacently he rattles the sieve. Look
! at him watt it from side to side, and toss
its contents up and down like a pancake.
What is he doinga Blowing the chat
out of it. It's a sample and the pur-
chasing jobber is at hand. He has just
roasted few handfuls in his own little
rooster in the office, for he himself bought
the coffee green.
Four times a year--in March, June,
September and Decefnber-the Dutch
government sells coffee at public auction
in Padang. The Dutchman there meas
ures his coffee by the picul 136 pounds)
and values it by the guilder fifty cents)
SO the New Yorker just figures on the
equivalent of, say, twenty cents a pound
and cables his limit to his agents, and
they bid the Dutch auctioneer SO much
and no more. The day after the sale
everybody in the trade knows who
bought and what he bought at. The CO.
nundrum then is: What profit is he
satisfied with2 What will he sell at2
One funny thing about the Java cof-
fee business is that there are about five
times as many pounds of it sold over the
grocer's counter, as there are grown on
the island. As Mark Twain says, this
would look like a discrepancy or hiatus,
but we've got to accept facts as we find
them.
Coffee from Padang to New York,
after a voyage of 100 days. arrives more
or less sweated. This part is all
SKINNED off in Brooklyn warehouses and
afterward sold as 'sskimmings" to job.
bers at q reduced price. It was never
known to go any further than that, be-.
cause the retailers never sell you anyy-
thing but s'pure old Government Javaaa'
In the testing room OF a largo firm of
tea brokers in Water street half a dozen
men of critical palates sit around a re-
volving table slipping tea from delicate
china cups. It's . tea party, but what a
tea tablet No cloth, no milk, 10 sugar,
no gossipl A circle of cups outside of a
ring of canistefs, q copper kettle Of boil
ing water, and that's alI-strias
MnIdA ay;ig'asnu tney smack and they
spit. A brass spittoon, as high as the
table, and looking like o German from
bone Strengthened out receives all the
elected liquor.
Some time ago New York started
tea auctions every week and Chicago is
following suit, but tea is a commodity
that loses its flavor very easily, and Chi
Cages unsavory origin probably has a
good deal to do with her failure to rival
the metropolis as a tea mart. The Wall
street auctions have become quite a social
affair. Coffee, sandwiches, and napkins
are passed around among the guests.
When they sit down facing the auction
GERS rostrum, pencils and catalogues in
hand, you might easily imagine them a
group Of reporters sitting in execution on
the latest imported lecturer. It is an or
binary thing for 10, 900 half chests to be
sold. This means 45O, 900 pounds, and
when a couple of spoonfuls make a nice
cup Of tea, look at the delight in store
for u grandmother. New York Sun.
Earthquakes Gss This Century.
The principal earthquakes that have
taken place in this century, with the
number of casualties, are thus stated:
1905, Naples, 5000 killed 1892, Aleppo,